Preludes to a Fall
by trajik007
Summary: Ages change. Memories fade. The Gods Etro, Pulse, and Bhunivelze are remembered for most as only myth. Only those who know a terrible failure know them to be anything else. And they will learn that even then, they truly know nothing. They failed, and the world is doomed. But... is it? Noel x Hope. Set between 13-2 and LR:13. Rated for character death, yaoi, language, and others.
1. Nascence

**AN: This story is set at the end of 13-2, but before LR:13. It also uses the canon ending to the game. NoelxHope.**

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_**Preludes to a Fall – Nascence**_

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The sky was clear and bright, the wind whipping his tie and hair around as he landed on the top of the ship. It clashed strongly with the scene in front of him. Jogging up to the kneeling figure, he slowed.

"Noel..?" He asked. The figure, sitting bent over an unmoving body glanced back, then shook his head. Confusion and pain drilled its way in without asking, and Hope voiced the only thing in his mind.

"But why?"

He could feel his own hope dying inside, staring down at Noel and Serah. She was gone. And he had missed the chance to say goodbye by seconds. Anger was the next emotion to surface, though muted. Noel sat silent.

"You were safe. Everything was fine!" He said. He knew he should be reacting more, but the scientific part of his mind was well trained. He waited for an answer.

"The future changed. It changed." Noel said haltingly. Looking down, Hope tried to piece it together to understand. Noel continued. "If you change the future, you change the past. The effects ripple outwards, up and down the timeline. The seeress is forced to see it all."

Still looking down, something clicked. "You mean Serah… she saw this vision?" He pulled his eyes back to Noel, who still sat with his back to him, cradling a lifeless body. He couldn't help his brows from knitting together.

"Yes. And it killed her." Noel looked down at Serah, grief obvious in his countenance. He didn't cry. Mog, whom Hope had not even greeted, hovered above Noel's head looking down on Serah. The creature's heartache was obvious. Noel gently rubbed a hand down the side of Serah's unmoving face. "She knew the risk. If we altered the future, she knew what would happen; that her life could be in danger." He moved his hand from her face to under her waist. "I wanted to protect her."

Changing his hold, Noel came close to breaking down. "I thought I had." He cradled her to his chest and stared at the too-perfect sky. "I thought she was safe!"

At a spike of anguish in his chest, Hope scrunched his face and looked down. He didn't want to cry; not in front of Noel's so barely contained suffering and Mog's obvious confusion.

Just as the waves of grief crashed into Noel, a deep, penetrating boom filled the skies. His eyes snapped back open, alert. Life had taught him to never let his guard down, even in suffering. Confused, he looked around.

Hope had heard the same sound, but had not focused on it until the second pounding. The thought that it reminded him of a heartbeat was fleeting. Neither of them saw Mog flapping his arms as if trying to stay up until he fell. Hope, being closest, caught Mog. He saw for the first time how dull the crystal sat on Mog's head. No one had thought about what kept the creature here, what kept him alive.

In a small voiced filled with pain, Mog made his final statement. "The goddess… she has gone, kupo." With that, the crystal bobble fell heavy with gravity to the ship's surface, the light from the crystal burning out in a way that Hope knew was permanent. He looked up at Noel, unable to hide the emotional pain from his face. Noel met his eyes with an expression of hardening, and of sympathy.

Around them the sky grew dark, and the sounds of an otherworldly heartbeat continued. They heard a wind abruptly rise in the distance. Strong wind. Standing, Hope whirled around to where the sound came from, still embracing a dead Moogle in his arms. Noel made to step next to Hope, when he remembered words spoken so very long ago by a man once a friend.

Caius's words echoed in his head. Words about having the heart of a goddess. Shock, fear, and numbness settled into his bones, and he lifted his hands to look at them. "I killed… the goddess?!" Caius's words were the same, though Noel failed to catch the most important line. Noel fell to his knees once again with the realization.

At that moment, black winds buffeted the ship, trying to fling its two outside passengers over the edge and to a drop of frightful length. Hope tried to maintain his balance, forgetting the Moogle in his arms as he, too, fell to his knees. At a sound from behind him, Noel glanced back to where he'd left Serah's body to find… nothing.

"No!" He shouted, scrambling towards the edge. He knew it would be dangerous in this wind, but needing to give her proper rites came first to his thoughts. Only, when he looked out over the edge, there was… nothing. But that wasn't right either. He knew he should have seen if she fell, but the sight before him stopped all thought. Below him was not Pulse and Academia, but Valhalla. Shocked, he looked out over the rest of the city, only to find that it was still there. In parts.

Valhalla seemed to be merging like they had been warned, but not completely. It was almost as if two puzzles had been forcibly jumbled together, pieces jammed side-by-side when they shouldn't have fit.

"Hope!" He cried, turning to the other man. The winds were knocking that part of the ship so badly that Hope was now on his side in the fetal position, still clutching Mog. Noel tried to force his legs into action, but was only halfway back to Hope when the black wind enveloped him. He froze, jarred, thinking he had lost his only acquaintance left in this time. It wasn't a thought born of fear or anguish, but of resignation.

In the next instant, the black winds traveled out to surround Academia's largest building, and many of the smaller structures further out. Noel watched, detached. Headquarters slowly disappeared, and at the same time another building was appearing. In the seconds it took to complete, Noel did not think. The black winds stopped, and where the building had stood was a familiar building; Valhalla's throne room. He turned and saw that Bhunivelze was still in the sky, its lights out completely. Thinking about the darkness, he remembered Hope.

His head and eyes snapped down to see Hope re-emerge from the black cloud. Mog was no longer with him. He was still in the fetal position, but he now clutched air to him. He was also decidedly unconscious. "Hope!" Noel shouted, finally getting his legs moving again.

"What the hell is going on up there? You screaming, sudden turbulence, and now my cargo is melting. Hope, what do I do? Hope?" The voice was somewhat garbled, but still recognizable as the pilot Noel had met earlier. _Serz? Saze?_ He knew it started with an S at least.

"We need to land. Serah's dead. Hope's not awake. Mog is gone. I think we failed. We can't be in the air." He yelled back. Silence spoke back to him. After a few moments he felt the slow descent of the airship. Maybe he'd been too rough with Sahz. _That was it; Sahz_. "I'm sorry. I know you knew them all better than I d… did." Was all he could say. He wasn't even sure the older man heard him. He'd completely forgotten about Dajh, the boy.

As the ship landed minutes later on a foreign landscape, Noel sat cradling a limp body to him for the second time that day and for the third in his life. The only difference was that he knew this body still lived. That made him apathetic. He had nothing to worry about, so long as the breathing from this one in white never stopped. It wasn't much, but it was all he could hold on to in the face of such utter failure.

Distantly he heard a bell in the throne tower gonging. Over, and over, and over….

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**AN: I know it follows the end very close, but I'm building something here. I'm in the mood to write, so there might be a few updates today. Or at least this week. I really need to get this story out. RnR!**


	2. Reawakening

_**Preludes to a Fall – Reawakening**_

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When Hope came to, he didn't recognize the room he was in. He didn't remember what had happened at first either, and then the sound of wind reached his ear, making him snap straight up. He was in a bed, or what looked like one, and alone. Looking around the room, the knowledge that he was missing his jacket, shirt, and tie were distant until he noted them piled in the corner. He took a moment to really gauge his surroundings.

He lay on a cold, hard surface that had had blankets piled on top. He propped both arms behind him to make sitting up easier and looked at the remains of the stone pillar he was resting on. And then he looked behind him, and gasped. The rest of the room – what was left of it, hope thought - faded from his mind as he scrambled out of bed. His socked feet struck stone, and he slowly made his way, in wonder, to the giant crystal throne in the center of it all.

"Light…" He whispered. He hadn't seen her in over ten years, but even in crystal she looked the same. _She has such a forlorn expression on her face_. That thought brought everything back to him. The top of the ship. Serah. Mog. The wind and the strange buildings. The last thing he remembered was Noel rushing to the edge of the ship. Then black.

"Welcome back." Said a muted voice from behind him. He turned to see Sazh standing against another broken piller with his arms crossed, and behind him almost hiding was Dajh. "You've been asleep for a while."

Glancing behind Sazh, he realized that dawn was just breaking over a new, foreign world. "How long?" He asked.

"Thirteen days - We think." Sazh said, dropping his arms and standing away from the pillar. "We don't really know, but the watches all keep ticking, so..."

The words of the older man confused Hope. _Thirteen days… I don't understand._ He moved to where his clothing and bags were piled and began to put some of them back on. "Where are we?"

"We aren't." Came a new voice. Buttoning up his shirt, Hope glanced back to see Noel coming up behind Sazh and Dajh, ruffling the small boy's hair as he walked. It was obviously an absent gesture, but it brought a smile to the boy's face. But his words had slowed Hope's actions, making him think of a long suppressed memory. A l'Cie boy with no thoughts of a future.

His hesitation was missed by all in the room, and he continued with his jacket and shoes. "Meaning…" He asked, not to anyone in particular.

A strong note of both pain and anger filled Noel's voice. "Meaning we failed. Meaning _I_ failed. I'm still here because my future was never erased…" He didn't finish the sentence, but Hope knew what it would be. _Meaning **you** caused your own future before you were born. You're stuck in a time loop… Oh Noel._

He finished dressing, but left his satchels where they were. "What do you remember, Hope?" Sazh asked, a note of what sounded almost like fear in his voice. Hope ignored the intonation and sat back on his makeshift pillar-bed to thought about it. "I remember getting to Noel and Serah... … Serah…" He stopped for a moment in thought, regretting that he had not been closer to her. Yet another friend of his, lost.

"I remember Mog… telling us the goddess had died." He amended the sentence before finishing, not wanting to bring up the Moogle's death. "I remember turbulence and wind. And then... well. Nothing." He looked up at Sazh when he said it, noting Noel's attention on him as well.

"Um..." Noel started, sounding very hesitant. "It… it doesn't normally happen to men. But… did… did you see anything unusual?" He asked, the last of it in a rush. It was a potential terror to him that the people he surrounded himself with would continue dying from the eyes of a now dead goddess.

Hope thought about it for a few moments but eventually shook his head. Noel's question had been if he'd _seen_ anything but… it was better to be open with his friends. "Not visions. Not like Serah." He said, giving Hope a look of mild reassurance before turning back to Sazh. "But… it felt… I'm not sure I have a word for it. It felt like meeting someone I've known forever, without there being anyone to meet." He said, confusion writ upon his features and voice.

His friends remained silent. And then they both glanced behind him. To Lightning. He turned as well to look upon her crystal visage, and started. Her eyes were open. She still held the look of eternal sorrow, but her eyes seemed to pin Hope down. Making an involuntary noise, he stood and stepped toward her. He could have sworn that before she'd had a look of sorrowful acceptance, with her eyes closed. Now she looked like the sorrow of the masses were on her shoulders, and yet... angry. Or maybe determined was the right word.

"Hope?" Sazh asked, stepping forward. "You alright?" Then a note of understanding crept in. "First time seeing her again, huh?" He made a humming noise in his throat.

In shock, he whipped his head back to Sazh, then to Noel, and finally back to Light. Her eyes were still open. Neither of the other men had seemed surprised in the least. "I guess I'm just still weak. Thirteen days is a long time to go without sustenance or exercise. Maybe I'm taking things too fast." He said, lifting a hand to his head and seating himself once more. He didn't tell them about seeing things. He blamed it on too much rest and too little of everything else, and then moved on.

He looked to both men once more before voicing his question. "Bhunivelze? The people? Academia? …Vanille and Fang?" His voice lost more life with every new word, hitting a note of expectant bad news on the final three.

The two shared a look before Noel stepped towards him. "Bhunivelze is still in the sky, but it's dark. We've had no contact from the people, and haven't been able to get through, either." He stopped and looked to Hope with a mix of sympathy and something unreadable, almost as if he were willing Hope to move on already. "Academia is mostly gone. The places where Valhalla took over are empty. Places where Academia still runs through have people… but few."

Sazh broke in stating that he imagined it would be the same everywhere. Hope looked from one to the other, ignoring his last question for a moment. "Vanille and Fang?" He asked again, afraid he already knew the answer.

The air was silent for a long moment before Sazh answered. "They're gone." Images of the crystal shattering in that black storm seized Hope. He looked at the floor, too many emotions to list racing and battling each other across his features. Then he looked up. "Broken." He stated.

"No." Sazh answered. There was another period of silence, then a gruff noise from Noel. "We need to just tell him. It's cruel to keep him questioning." Noel looked back to Hope, impatience and irritation in his features.

"They melted. They started to melt about the same time that you lost consciousness. It took five days. We tried everything we could to keep them cold, but it's crystal, not ice. Serah disappeared, and Snow never came back from the coliseum. Now that you know, grieve and move on. We're in my world now, and it only gets worse from here." He turned and left. It was obvious that his failure was getting to him.

Hope stood and turned back to look at Lightning. She still had her eyes open, which he assumed was normal. _I must have imagined it the first time_. "They're all gone. Our past is gone. Isn't it Sazh?" He asked. He wasn't sure what he was feeling, but it was strangely empty. When he didn't get an answer, he turned around. Sazh was gone, as was Dajh. He pivoted again to look at Lightning and froze in shock once more. She had her eyes closed, the same deep sorrow on her face as the first time he'd looked at her since waking.

The world went black, and he awoke to the same room. He was fully clothed, and Noel stood staring at Lightening a few feet away. A terrible feeling of déjà vu hit Hope, and he sat up clutching his head at the onset of a terrible headache.

Noel turned at the noise and walked to him, grabbing a leather jug off the flagstones near the pillar Hope lay on. "You should drink this. You've been asleep for almost two weeks." As Hope took the jug from Noel, a strong, painful spike of alarm and fear jolted through him, but he couldn't figure out why. He felt like it might be connected to the dream he'd just had, but it was all covered in black clouds; he couldn't remember.

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**AN: I feel devious. My story has a lot of plot things. **


	3. Abstraction

**AN:**

**Bekas Strife: Hey thanks! First review and follow! And yeah….. so am I.**

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_**Preludes to a Fall – Abstraction**_

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_Everything is black and white. We failed. There is no good side to this. So why can't I stop looking for one?_ Hope thought to himself, sitting once again in the throne room of Valhalla. It had been thirteen days since he'd woken – the same amount of time he'd slept. The coincidence did not go unnoticed.

The problem he was having with himself was that he felt no grief. Since he'd woken, he'd felt fine. A few things had presented minor to major shocks, such as the real state of the city and people. But nothing had truly bugged him about what he saw – he felt he'd known how it would be, and he was troubled by that.

What troubled him more was that he felt no _grief_. Lightning sat in crystal in front of him. He'd seen Serah's body, even if there was no trace of it now. Snow hadn't been heard from since two years after Lightning disappeared, and Noel said he was trapped in some coliseum. _With everything that's happened, I imagine you're stuck there Snow, _he thought.

The only person he could say he knew was Noel, and the conversations between them had been scarce. The only thing he had conveyed to Hope had been the fact that by the time the airship landed, the cockpit was empty. The cargo still held Fang and Vanille, so at least he had them. But Sazh and Dajh had disappeared. _That only makes sense if they disappeared after we landed_, Hope thought. There were so many problems with what had happened.

He took another step towards the gap separating the throne from the room and lifted his hand toward Lightning. "Can you hear me? Are you there? When I speak to the three of you, is it in vain?" he asked the air. He smirked bitterly at himself. _Of course not. The bounds of possible and impossible stretch only so far._

He turned and surveyed the room. He'd done this every day since waking, first making rounds to Vanille and Fang, and then coming here and speaking with Lightning. Then he would survey the room, lost in thought until Noel found him. It was a routine he was only beginning to recognize, and one he wasn't pleased with. _I need to start thinking of a way out of this. There has to be one._

The room looked as if an enormous battle had taken place within. Not many pillars still stood, and the ones that did were either crumbling or had been bystanders in the violence. The only thing untouched by decay and brutality was the throne in the center and the giant, swirling blue of the outer design. Even that had taken an impact in the battle, but slight. His thoughts slowly left the areas surrounding him and returned to the ones in his mind.

They had noticed an extreme spike in the magical abilities of people since chaos broke free. He felt that this must somehow be related to the rise in ability after the fall of the Cocoon fal'Cie, but he couldn't find the link.

Either way, he still didn't understand what had gone wrong in all of this. They'd all done everything they could. Where was the problem? Light footfalls behind him made him turn, his back to the throne. Noel took a few more steps into the room and stopped. He never looked at Hope. Instead, his eyes were also on Lightning.

"I still don't know if this was all her fault or mine," Noel said. Hope frowned in confusion, taking a stance that was a comfort to him. He held both his hands behind his back and straightened, putting his attention to what the younger man said instead of wandering. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean she was in Valhalla. And the impression I got was that she'd been there for a while. She would have been able to see what was happening - what would happen. So why did she send me to her sister?" Noel said, still not looking to Hope. His face was a mask of calm over words anything but. He stood with his arms to his sides, leaning to one side. After a moment he crossed his arms and looked down to the side. "But I think it's me. My failure was larger," he said.

Confused, Hope tilted his head to the side trying to follow. It made sense what Noel said about Lightning. If she had been able to see with Etro's Eyes from Valhalla, she would have known the choices they had made would lead to disaster. _That doesn't fit with the Light I know. The only time she lost regard for other people was when Serah was in danger… Oh!_ A thought struck Hope that sent him reeling back into his own mind. He crossed his arms and looked down as well, continuing his thought.

_If what she saw was Serah in danger, she would have been able to fix what led to it. She wouldn't have led us to chaos. Unless there was no way to keep Serah safe to begin with. But if so, why choose this?_ It didn't make sense. Shaking his head, he realized Noel was talking again. Grimacing, he brought his attention back. It wasn't often the younger one spoke – he should at least listen. "…have heeded, and remembered, it wouldn't have happened, but I didn't. I got caught up in my own quest and seeing people and new things," he said, cutting off with a scowl.

With a very slow sinking feeling that he might know what Noel was referring to, Hope uncrossed his arms and stepped forward. "What was said that you should have heeded?" He knew immediately he had asked too sharply as Noel tensed before looking at him with grim determination.

"Caius told me that killing him would end the world. He told me that he had the heart of Etro. We later had it confirmed by Yuel that Etro had given him her heart after he'd sacrificed himself to save her first incarnation," Noel said. He continued in a rush. "He said that he goal was to have him kill me so he could end the world. But I didn't know. I didn't remember. It was so long before I came here – even before Yuel died." As he finished, he was looking at the ground again.

Hope stood staring. He wasn't shocked, but he was surprised. "Did you tell Serah?" he asked. Noel shook his head, but then got a curious look in his eye. "No, but she did see inside a dream of mine. All of that happened. But I can't imagine she knew it to be truth," he finished, shaking his head. "Anyway. I figured you deserved to know," he said, standing strait and looking Hope in the eye.

Hope kept eye contact for a moment, searching to see if there was anything else to the story, then nodded. "I thank you for the consideration. But I don't feel that this was your fault. If that was the case, you would be stuck in a loop. You aren't. Even if your future hadn't changed, it can't be the same either. It's not possible unless there truly is rebirth, and even if that were the case you would have thrown it off by being cycled too early," he said. He stopped at a look of confusion from Noel, and then realized he was skipping some steps. _I always see things so clearly, why can I never explain them?_ he thought.

Cocking his head to the side, he looked at Noel. "Would you be interested in a conversation on this topic? Perhaps we can come to something that makes sense together," he said, motioning to the fallen and broken stone pillar that had been his 'bed' open awakening thirteen days ago. He was fully expecting Noel to decline, seeing the man's irritation and confusion on the subject, so when he haltingly nodded and started to walk to the makeshift seat Hope was a bit confused.

"What do you mean that she saw inside your dream? Was it of the past? And how accurate was it?" Hope asked as they sat together. He wished there had been a stone pillar to bring around so he could look at Noel; it was always much easier to hypothesize with someone when you could read their face too. He didn't have much experience with conversation not related to his career.

"When we left you and Alyssa in Academia, something happened. Serah and I got split up. The next thing I know, I'm home. The future, I mean. As far as I know, she saw it all. And it was more memory than dream, so it was pretty spot on," Noel said. He noticed that Hope face has fallen and gone sour at the beginning. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"Alyssa - about her. Three days after you left, she tried to kill me. She almost succeeded, but she started to… I don't know. Disintegrate in front of me. A few days later I found her diary. She was dead! She'd died during the Purge on Cocoon. The artifact she'd given you was… well, we don't know. Wrong, somehow. She'd admitted as much, along with the fact that she'd gotten it from Caius," Hope said. He had a bitter look on his face, and he was leaning forward with his forearms on his thighs.

Noel could tell there was a deeper level of betrayal. He was going to leave that note alone when, surprisingly, Hope started talking again. "It was also mentioned that should could remember the events of the alternate timeline you changed. She claimed she had changed the programming of the fal'Cie I would have created. She intentionally killed everyone to try to keep herself from fading," he said. He faced the ground.

Trying to change the subject, Noel tried to backpedal. "What do you mean a time loop? A closed paradox?" he asked. Hope looked up with an unknown expression to Noel and say up. He seemed to get an air of excitement, but then he always did when explaining.

"Not precisely. You would have to affect your own past for that. But you came further back than your own past – far enough back that it should have had no repercussions on your own existence. You were born in 700 – You can't be in a loop because we're still 200 years before that. Everyone dies. You did change your future, because you're no longer in ours. You come from an alternate…" Hope trailed off. Another thought had taken him. _Could it be possible that there are other timelines Lightning saw?_ He looked over to her on the crystal throne. _Could you have seen them all? Light, what happened to ours? Are we still in the same one?_

"…Hope?" Noel asked, leaning forward. Hope was looking the other direction, towards Lightning, and appeared to be deep in thought. Suddenly he brought he head back around, face blank in thought. Realization slowly came to his features, and he looked down. "I'm sorry Noel. I can't seem to keep myself out of my mind recently," he said. "Anyway, my point was that this can't be your past Noel. The old future. You're already in our histories now. What's happened in this timeline was not your fault," he said.

Something kept nagging at Hope. A small memory of anger from Noel, but the younger man hadn't shown any. He hadn't been exactly hospitable the past two weeks, but there had been no real anger. Once more, he was brought out of his reverie by Noel.

"…hungry?" Hope looked to Noel blank-faced again, which made Noel laugh. Noel was starting to realize that Hope might need to have a good mood around as well, but in a very different sense than Serah had. "Come on. I caught a Pantopoda. I don't know if they're edible, but I'm going to find out," he said, standing and starting for the door. After a few steps he heard the rustling of fabric behind him, followed by footsteps.

Noel felt a little bit better, knowing that there was at least one person he was acquainted with still alive. _I still have someone with brains on my side, and who knows? Maybe he'll figure out a way to fix everything. I'll stick around at least until I see that much._

They walked out of the throne room to sunset. They had yet to find out that though the days continued, time had stopped. There would be no death. No new life. They had yet to find out that the future was Hope, though they'd been told before.

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**AN: I know that this is slow to start. But it's going to be a big story, and I have a lot of things to make points of and get out, and it's going to take a while. Hope you like! RnR!**


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